The ground was different. Red hadn’t even opened her eyes yet but knew she wasn’t lying on her bed anymore. There were distant memories of her having done something else, but in her dream-state she couldn’t quite put tabs on them.
The realization struck her like a bullet. She hopped up from the bed she was on, looking herself over, seeing the bandages over her wound. There was a gasp in the room. “It’s awake!” yelled one of the men she’d seen at the spaceport.
She hissed, bringing her ears back, and extending her talons. It hurt to recoil her body in a defensive stance. The wound began to act up, blood was pouring onto the bed. The world started spinning.
Awoke again, unable to move, there were straps holding her down this time. Mart was looming over her. He was greeted by a roar, which sounded more like a whimper than anything else. Red was trying to hide her fear. But if he’d wanted her dead, she’d be dead, right? Memories of an encounter with Mart began to resurface.
“You shot me!”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“How do you accidentally shoot someone?! That hurt! A lot!”
“I saved your life?” Mart offered, hoping to alleviate some of the hostility.
“Where’s Allonsi!”
“Alive, healthy. Darnell’s got ‘im by now.”
“Why am I here?”
“Because I shot you…”
“Why did you shoot me!”
“It was an accident.”
“Why – you mentioned you saved my life? From who – what happened!”
“From me – after I shot ya you were dying!”
“Then why—“
“Accident! I swear it.” Mart did the Zemorian salute, bringing his left arm up to his chest.
“My chest hurts. I want to go home. Take me home!”
“I can’t.”
“Why not – you said it was an accident!”
“I know, and how do you think Darnell will react after he realizes I shot you?”
“Untie me!”
“No!”
“I won’t bite!”
“You tried to kill me!”
“I did – right but you took over my ship! And sedated me! Luckily my neural interface defeated your inhibitor.” Red wasn’t quite sure how, though. The interface kept transmitting her information on bemicytes but she was too young to understand the terminology. “My chest hurts.” Red repeated.
“Mine too.” Mart said, opening his shirt to show her the two talon wounds.
Red smiled, looking down at her claws proudly.
“Look – I know I have to get you back. I’ll have to drop ya off somewhere, though.”
“Why not take me to Darnell?”
“Told you already, there’s no way. Either I open a channel to him here, which means we’ll get jumped on immediately. Or I open a channel to him on a station, like Fort six – where I can leave you ‘til he arrives. Less risk.”
“Then do that. Fort six let’s go!” Red growled.
“But then there’s compensation…” Mart said.
“Compensation?” Red snorted.
“For trying to kill me. Another fifty mil should cover it. I’ll nearly have enough for my own full-grown Beems…”
“And how are you gonna get him to pay another fifty mil?”
“I’m glad you asked, Red. See I’ve installed a nice collar on your neck – explosive. Timed detonator, with the disarming sequence a fifty million transfer to my account. Once I drop you off at Fort VI, Darnell has an hour to get there and pick you up or boom.”
“How are you getting explosives onto a space station?”
“Fort VI condones slavery. Explosive collars are common.” Mart replied.
“What if he doesn’t come in time? What if something holds him up?” Red asked anxiously.
“Well, that’d be unfortunate…” Mart said.
Red was shivering now. The world seemed colder, much colder.
“The collar’s your standard getup too. It’s got a shock system on it, proxy sensors. All-in-all it’s pretty expensive, would be quite a loss if it went up with ya.” Mart said. “So co-operate! Alright? I’m gonna untie you now. You do anything unfriendly and it’s over for you.”
Red couldn’t believe she’d liked Mart. She felt so stupid. Mart untied her and got a fierce glare but nothing else. The only option was co-operating. The ship was barely explored by her, and she didn’t say a single word to Mart, ignoring his attempts at conversation. All she wanted to know was where the bathrooms were and where she would be staying. The rest didn’t matter anymore. Mart was a pirate, an enemy. He had ransomed Allonsi for his own personal gain, and would now ransom her off or kill her. She didn’t even ask if there was a way to de-activate the collar without a fifty million transfer.
It was only supposed to take fifteen minutes to get to Fort VI, but something had delayed them. She didn’t ask Mart what it was. She could see what looked like a planetoid through the lounge window, a tiny hulk of rock no bigger than the tip of her claw from here.
Hours passed. Her corner was uncomfortable, and she was getting hungry. Most of the crew had left this area now. There were only two here, talking to each other over what seemed like some sort of card game. They were sitting at the table right by the exit. Neither were paying her any attention.
She skulked over to the lounge counter, hugging the side of it to avoid detection. She readied herself for a pounce and leapt across the table to the kitchen side, stifling a whimper as she landed, her wound acting up again. Hopefully it wouldn’t start bleeding. A few moments were spent monitoring it in case it did. With a sigh of relief, the mission was continued. She wanted to get to the food container and eat as much as she could. Vorchans had a voracious appetite, and all she had since linking with Allonsi was nutrient fluid. Nutrient fluid wasn’t very good.
There was only one door, and it wasn’t a handle door, it was a keypad door. She glared at it confrontationally, disappointed to be defeated this far into her journey.
“Red.” Red jumped at the mention of her name, glancing back to see Mart and the two other crewmen. “Ya hungry?”
Red nodded, still not on speaking terms with Mart anymore. He slowly walked to the end of the counter and made his way over to the door, and – co-incidentally – to her.
Hiss!
“I have to open the door if you want—“
Growl!
“Fine! Don’t eat.” Mart said, leaving the lounge.
Red scurried to the end of the counter and peaked out, avoiding any more leaps. There was nobody here. They had all left her. With a conniving smile, she made her way back to the keypad door and started staring at it.
She stared and stared until the neural interface finally, with its limited, horribly incomprehensible artificial intelligence, realized what she was desperately trying to do.
Click. The door swung open.
The room was full of boxes. Some of them were already open. All the boxes were made of a cheap composite and easily chewable. Labels varied from perishables to rations and even gasp lobster!
This would be a good night.
–
Red awoke to Mark glaring at her in disgust. “All of it? Really?”
She burped. Very content.
“That lobster cost… I… you annoy the shit out of me.” Mart sighed.
Red stretched. Her wound didn’t hurt as much anymore, and her placid mood from all that food meant she was content with Mart for now. He was spared the glare. Maybe she would even talk to her.
“So what happened yesterday?” Red asked.
“Nothing…”
“We were at the planetoid but we didn’t dock. Why?”
“Darnell was there.” Mart sighed.
“How – how did he not detect me?!” Red asked in consternation.
“The dampener’s still active. It was just the sedative your interface managed to neutralize.”
“Oh…”
“Then how did it—“
“How did it what?”
“Never mind.”
“Wait a second. How’dya open this door?!” Mart asked.
“I hacked it!” Red exclaimed.
“With the neural interface?”
She nodded proudly.
“Well I’ll have to up the strength of the dampener then…” Mart said.
“Try it!” Red hissed.
Mart took out a small device and turned a dial. “There.”
“I hate you!”
“You aren’t supposed to like me. You’re my hostage!”
“I did like you. I thought you were great! I thought you were going to be my ticket to new spikes and make-up and colors. And food! Wonderful food instead of that stupid goop Allonsi generates day after day which I have to pretend is good so I don’t hurt her feelings but is instead the most horribly disgusting thing imaginable…”
Mart laughed. “But you have awesome claws. Who needs spikes! It’ll just make you less pettable.”
“Hmph.”
“And you don’t need make-up or different colors. Who are you trying to impress at your age?”
“Eyeliner, at least. I want to accentuate my blue eyes!”
“Your eyes look fine.”
Red was almost moved by the compliment, until she imagined her eyes exploding into a thousand pieces as the collar-bomb detonated.
“Why can’t you be normal – a good person? I liked you so much! I thought we’d have a future together! I thought I’d finally met someone who didn’t care that Allonsi could only carry one-thousandth of the weight of a full grown Beems, or the fact that I have no transport permits or licenses. I thought I’d met someone who was willing to give me a chance and let me prove to them I could do what others trained for years to do! That I could learn and that I wouldn’t let them down!”
To her surprise, she was crying now.
“Why is it that the people who I think are going to save me are always the ones that kill me?” Red asked, remembering Martock, and how he’d taken her from her crèche, promising her the stars and a future, only to point a gun at her head and pull the trigger.
“What about the Vorchan contract?”
“I don’t make anything off that. I never will. It will take years for me to be anything, and I doubt Fawkes will ever let me go now. It was so hard to convince him I was ready to leave!”
“Tass’ran.” Mart said.
“What?”
“Do you know who that is?” Mart asked.
Red shook her head, wiping her tears with her paws and sniffing piteously.
“Neither do we. But Mao says our ship’s intelligence thinks you’re him. It has you labelled as Tass’ran in our manifest.”
“Who was he?” Red asked.
“A Vorchan that had apparently aided an earlier crew. This ship is very old. Very old.” Mart said.
“How is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Well. If they could have a Vorchan crewman… then…”
“I don’t want to be a pirate.” Red shook her head. “And my parents would never agree. Neither would Allonsi. There’s no way.” she said with a laugh, shaking her head incredulously, “A pirate! You’re crazy, Mart.”
But she seemed to feel a lot better now.
“Well, if that’s the case. We’re docked now.” he pressed a button on his device and Red heard her collar beep. “One hour. We’ve already sent a beemspace transmission.”
She felt herself pale, her previous boost of emotion gone.
“Let’s go, Red.” Mart said.
–